We are close to heading into the full-time recruiting season when coaches exchange their game film for plane trips and flying around the country to visit recruits.

Instead of getting ready to play an opponent on Saturday they set up for official visits on the weekends.

Over the last couple years recruiting has changed so much. During the pandemic we saw most of KU’s class sign a letter of intent without ever visiting campus. Some never met their position coach before signing.

With the extra year of eligibility given to players from Covid all the way to the transfer portal it has changed college recruiting.

With the new rules and shift happening, I expect the Kansas coaching staff to take advantage of all three areas including high school players, junior college transfers, and tapping into the portal.

“As you can see across college football, college football recruiting as a whole has changed,” Kansas head coach Lance Leipold said. “It's changed and it will change, and we will change along with that and find the best ways to improve our program. Not just for short term, for the long term. Whether that be a high school player, a junior college player, or a player in the portal.”

Late last week the Jayhawks picked up a commitment from Mike Smith from Gulf Coast Community College. He was the MACCC Defensive MVP after averaging 10 tackles a game. At 6-foot-1, 230 pounds he is more developed than a high school prospect and can play all three linebacker positions.

Kansas will get a visit this weekend from DeShon Singleton at Hutchinson Community College. He is an academic qualifier who has four years to play three seasons. He is almost like a high school recruit eligibility-wise.

The Jayhawks have the youngest Power Five roster in the nation. This is the year it makes sense to take advantage of a few junior college players as well as the transfer portal.

Schools all over the country are doing it and KU would be smart to do the same.

“Our evaluation of our roster and recruiting will be holistic,” Leipold said. “It'll be what is done to bolster our roster and bolster our competition. Internally in the program, you can see when we take the field, in many games, our youth is relevant as early as warmups. And for us to build this program, there's a lot of ways that that needs to be implemented to get us on the right path.”

The roster is filled with underclassmen. Adding transfers, especially those who can arrive at semester to go through spring football, is a smart play for the 2022 class.

Leipold and his staff have evaluated the roster and will do what it is best to build for the future. He has done it before and can do it again.

“My responsibility is for us to recruit and develop players that are going to help us represent this university as best as it can, on and off the field,” he said. “And that's what we'll do, and always has been. That's what we've done at the previous places, and we'll do it (here) as well.”